Tags: malcolm turnbull

You know that scene in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar where, in the run up to a political upheaval, a bloke called Casca is seeing visions? Lions, ghastly women (well, Kath and Kim‘s back), birds in the marketplace howling and shrieking, that kind of thing.

To add to the entertainment value, Malcolm Turnbull – a well-known machine man and headkicker of the Liberal party, as well as a wealthy and influential businessman, sooked mightily and claimed repeatedly that he was being bullied and he wasn’t going to stand for this kind of bullying.

Oh diddums.

To hear this from a member of the Liberal party, who has just tried to ram through an unpopular and inappropriate development for the benefit of Gunn’s Ltd — corporate bullies extraordinaire – just sends the irony meter into orbit. He doesn’t recognise Mr Cousins’ behaviour, because he’s not used to seeing it: it’s not bullying, Malcolm, it’s called standing up to someone or something. The Americans call it speaking truth to power. Oh, and Turnbull made noises about perhaps it’s time we looked at Cousins’ position on the Telstra board because of this. Threatening someone’s job? Who’s the bully, again?

Why is this unusual suspect coming out swinging?

The bushwalking fan said he became focused on the mill after reading an article by Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan. He contacted Flanagan and Greens leader Bob Brown. They felt that rather than one of the “usual suspects” it needed “an unusual suspect” to fight the issue — “that’s why I came in”.
…Entrepreneur Graeme Wood also came out in support of Mr Cousins yesterday after appearing before Tasmanian upper house MPs to brief them about the mill’s potential costs. He said the mill would damage tourism and cost jobs.

I remember – hell, this is so going to show my age – the Labor “It’s Time” ad campaign. I remember the Liberal response to it, too – a little cartoon man, the naive prospective Labor voter, being lectured by one of his betters on the disastrous events in store for him if he does. “And,” the voiceover intoned, “Once they get in, they’ll change the system, and then you’ll never get them out!”

In the same spirit of “it’s OK when we do it, but not when they do”, the government has also been criticising the Ruddster’s declared intention to intercept whaling ships in Australian waters (“Piracy!” thundered Malcolm Turnbull), while conveniently forgetting that they initiated the “Border Control bill” in 1999-2000 to allow themselves to patrol the northern waters, intercept and board ships deemed to be carrying asylum seekers or just illegal fishermen.

Of course, the Libs pick their battles. It would take guts to go head to head with the Japanese government and “scientific” whalers, instead of eighteen-year-olds and Indonesian fishermen or refugees.

“The funding will go, given the nature of our geography, will largely go to South-East Asia,” Mr Turnbull said.

“The biggest deforesters in the world or the places where the most deforestation of tropical forests is occurring are in Brazil and Indonesia, they’re the top two so naturally our focus is going to be on our part of the world

Our part of the world? C’mon Malcolm, you can say it: Our part of the world includes… yes… US!

but we’re not limiting it to that.”

Geez, Malcolm. You think that when you announce a policy of spending hundreds of millions to buy out the logging industry, it might not be appropriate to APPLY IT TO THE FEW HUNDRED PEOPLE WHO ARE CLEARFELL LOGGING THE REMNANT OF OLD GROWTH FORESTS IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY? YA THINK??

I don’t know why some people think the Fairfax press is so left wing. It’s full of articles by, or about, the right wing world view. As an AGE and SMH reader I certainly don’t feel like a member of the chattering classes having my comfortable world view reinforced. More often it’s a window into how the other half thinks. Good for me, I suppose.

Schools have been hijacked by “new-age class warrior” teachers more committed to promoting homosexuality, multiculturalism and Aborigines than teaching the three Rs…
…public education is in crisis because political correctness, state-sponsored education fads and left-wing unions have skewed the teacher’s role from objectivity to indoctrination….

By the pricking of my thumbs, a rightwing thinktank this way comes.

The book, published today, was commissioned by the Menzies Research Centre. Its chairman and aspiring Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull, said recommendations of an earlier education paper for the centre “have already found their way into government policy”, and the book would spark discussion about the quality of the curriculum.

Looks like Mr Donnelly needs a dose of the three Rs himself. “Forgotten is that many parents would consider the sexual practices of gays, lesbians and transgender individuals decidedly unnatural …” he wrote. Forgotten is his education in English grammar, obviously.(more…)